Uganda is the country that has decided to charge its inhabitants a tax for using social networks. Three months have passed since the implementation of this new tax and the results begin to appear.
According to the information, users who access the Internet are less 3 million. That is, in a country with 42 million people and 16 million users with subscription internet access, in 3 months it dropped to just over 13 million.
The problem of taxes with social networks
The biggest problem these taxes make is the lack of freedom of speech. An issue that is increasingly being raised in the face of the latest measures. The Ugandan government felt that its inhabitants should pay to access these social networks and the results are obvious. Few want to pay extra to see the lives of others on social networks.
Although I wanted to understand such a measure to reduce the bad information that passes in social networks, I can not understand to what extent it is an extra tax would solve the situation. The Ugandan government has tried to make a few extra changes with the popularity of these social networks and is backfiring.
In addition, users with more knowledge about VPN (Virtual Private Network) have grown to “indicate” that they are navigating from another country and to access blocked websites in that country.
In short, the results are clear. People seem not to be willing to pay to have social networks. But this leads me to question the extent to which the government is going to raise a few million more. Let’s hope this idea does not spread.
